Social Justice Outcomes in Service LearningAndrea Smith ShappellRachel Tomas MorganNicholas A. BowmanJay W. Brandenberger

University of Notre Dame

October 29, 2010 @ IRCSLCE

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME’SCENTER FOR SOCIAL CONCERNS

socialconcerns.nd.edu

MISSION STATEMENTS

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAMEThe University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.

THE CENTER FOR SOCIAL CONCERNSThe Center for Social Concerns of the University of Notre Dame facilitates community-based learning, research and service informed by Catholic Social Tradition. Through the Center, learning becomes service to justice. 

SUMMER SERVICE LEARNING PROGRAM

8 weeks – 3 credits – $2300 scholarship

Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct

Ap

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Availa

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Ori

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Sess

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Screening Interviews

And

Placement Sessions

Service-learning:

8 weeks, 3.0 credit

immersion, summer reading

and writing assignments

Post-immersion Reflective Practices:

3 discussions facilitated by

graduate students, plus

individual debriefing

Grade given in the fall semester

THEO 33936

program OVERVIEW

PROGRAM goals

Goal 1: In cities of Notre Dame Alumni Clubs, engage Notre Dame students in service relationships with people who are marginalized.

Goal 2: Initiate discussion of social concerns and the Catholic social tradition between students, alumni and alumnae, and community partners.

Goal 3: Engage students in a service-learning pedagogy, integrating the experience with academic readings, reflection and writing.

 LEARNING goalsGoal 1: SSLP students will learn about and apply the method of theological reflection as a means of understanding and interpreting the service experience and readings of the course.

Goal 2: SSLP students will learn about and engage the method of social analysis to interpret and expand knowledge about poverty, race and violence.

Disabilities sites: Students will grow in their understanding of social issues and social policies that effect people who have disabilities.

Goal 3: SSLP students will become conversant about the principles of Catholic social thought..

 

LEARNING activities- Orientation sessions

- Course readings

- Methods of Reflection

- Engaging in the work of the site and conversations with site supervisor and alumni club hosts

- Final paper and three follow-up discussions facilitated by graduate students

- Second time SSLP students take a Directed Readings Course with a professor in their major or minor.

ASSESSMENT of learning goals- Pre and post surveys: Administered in April and at the end of September

- Integration of readings with the experience in journal assignments and final paper

- Post-immersion: Individual interview and group discussion sessions

INTERNATIONALSUMMER SERVICELEARNING PROGRAM

Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct

Ap

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Inte

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Weeke

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Pre-departure: Global Issues

course + trainings

THEO 33970 1.0 credit

Service-learning: 8 weeks,

3.0 cr - immersion,

summer academic reading,

writing, & final paper

THEO 33938 3.0 credits

Re-entry:

Re-entry class sessions &

indiv. debriefing

THEO 33938 3.0 credits continued

Grade given in Dec for

summer and fall course

components

Weeke

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program OVERVIEW

growing INTEREST

COMPARISON OF ISSLP APPLICATIONS TO PLACEMENTS (1998–2009)

LEARNING goals

Goal 1: Students will gain an understanding of the multi-dimensionality of poverty in the developing world, analyze root causes, and identify strategies for social development (poverty alleviation).

Objective 1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the multi-dimensionality of international poverty.

Objective 2: Students will gain tools for social analysis in order to identify root causes of poverty.

Objective 3: Students will examine the ways the social institution (through the SL placement and by looking at the agency’s mission, history,

governance, and socio-economic demographic of its clientele) relates to (the political, social, economic, and demographic conditions of) the society (host country) to address poverty.

Goal 2: Students will gain an understanding of global social issues in light of Catholic Social Teaching (specifically through the themes of Solidarity and Preferential Option for the Poor).

Goal 3: Students will strengthen cross-cultural competencies.

LEARNING activities- Pre-immersion lectures and discussion presented by faculty across disciplines

- Pre-immersion, on-site, and post-immersion readings and assignments related to each presentation topic

- Pre-immersion assignments relating the presentation topic specifically to the host country

- On-site eight week service learning placement

- On-site journal entries addressing specific questions related to topics in readings

- Post-immersion re-entry sessions and submit final integrative paper/project

ASSESSMENT of learning goals- Pre and post surveys of 1.0 credit THEO 33970 and 3.0 credit THEO 33938

- Demonstrate knowledge of topic in final integrative paper

- Post-immersion individual interview, group discussion sessions, public presentation

THOMAS WEILER, ‘08—ISSLP, HELEKPE VILLAGE, GHANA

Social Justice Defined

Social justice represents an ideal quality or condition of human equality, respect, and right relationships. It is a rich yet complex concept. While concerns about justice are longstanding, the term social justice developed in the nineteenth century, and highlights both social ends and means. It can be a goal as well as a personal virtue. What constitutes social justice may be understood in cultural, philosophical, religious and social science contexts.

What is normal and just in one culture—for example, the exclusion of women or minority groups from voting, or punishment by the state for violating a religious tradition—may be considered morally unacceptable or even abhorrent in another. Discussion of social justice thus raises issues of power and access. Long-established cultural patterns that have facilitated acceptance of differential treatment may be resistant to change. Yet many views of social justice include respect for cultural differences as well as hope that inherent tensions can be overcome through dialogue and cooperation. …

Those seeking to promote social justice must also foster understanding of social systems that may promote or inhibit inequalities. Indeed it is often those who are critical of such systems that use the term social justice. … The challenge is to promote a vision of social justice that activates the imagination of those of differing political and cultural persuasions. Indeed, it may be argued that social justice is dependent on human imagination, on our ability to envision social equality and the means to promote it. Then we may be energized to foster habits of mind and relevant skills to build new and just social systems.

J. Brandenberger, in Power, Nuzzi, Narvaez, &Lapsley (2008): Moral Education: A Handbook 

  

Theory Matters

How do individuals develop understanding of justice?

One Model

Cognitive-Developmental Framework

J. Piaget

L. Kohlberg

We become just by doing just acts. — Aristotle

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do. (Nicomachean Ethics, II.1105b9)

For Kohlberg, the virtues unite in justice: “. . . the morally good person is simply one who reasons with, and acts on the basis of, principles of justice and fairness. (Flanagan & Jackson, 1987, p. 623)

Ethic of Caring and Ethic of JusticeFramed by C. Gilligan

“Whereas justice as fairness involves seeing others thinly, as worthy of respect purely by virtue of common humanity, morally good caring requires seeing others thickly, as constituted by their particular human face, … and taking seriously … one’s particular connection to the other.”

(Flanagan & Jackson, 1987, p. 623)

Implications for service learning (which is about the particular and the long-term, systemic), and for our study

Integrating Service-Learning and Social Justice

 Implicit assumptions, goals

 Need for more explicit reflection, analyses

See: Service Learning and Social Justice Education:Strengthening Justice-Oriented Community Based Models of Teaching and Learning

by David Butin (Ed.), 2008

Participants (n = 115)

97 Undergraduates in Summer Service Learning course (3 credits, 8 weeks)

18 Undergraduates in the International Summer Service Learning Course (3 credits)

Gender: 71% female

Part of a larger study (n = 469), to be shared Saturday

Measures

Belief in a Just World

Dalbert et al., 1987

6-item scale

Social Dominance Orientation

Sidanius et al., 1994

8-item scale

Belief in a Just World Scale

① I am confident that justice always prevails over injustice.

② I think basically the world is a just place.

③ I am convinced that, in the long run, people will be compensated for injustices.

④ I firmly believe that injustices in all areas of life (e.g. professional, family, politics) are the exception rather than the rule.

⑤ I believe that, by and large, people get what they deserve.

⑥ I think that people try to be fair when making important decisions

Research on Belief in a Just World

Research by Dalbert & Yamauchi (1994) has shown that people who have a stronger belief in a just world tend to

rationalize inequalities

to be less sympathetic towards the disadvantaged

be more likely to derogate victims of social injustice See Robert Loo, in Personality and Individual Differences (2002, Vol 33, p. 704)

Hypothesis:

We want to live in a just world, and we feel a need to see the world as just

Social Dominance Orientation Scale

① Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.

② It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.

③ To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups.

④ Inferior groups should stay in their place.

⑤ Group equality should be our ideal.

⑥ We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups.

⑦ Increased social equality [is a good thing]

⑧ We would have fewer problems if we treated people more equally.

Research on Social Dominance Orientation

Findings of Pratto, Sindanius, Stallworth, and Malle (1994)

High SDO predicts support for war policy, and for death penalty

SDO inversely correlated with support for policies supporting women’s rights and gay rights

SDO inversely correlated with scales measuring empathy, tolerance, communality, and altruism

Research on Social Dominance Orientation

Sibley, Robertson, and Wilson (2006)

“High levels of SDO may therefore be seen as an expression of the motivational goal for group-based dominance and superiority, whereas low levels reflect goals of egalitarianism and altruistic social concern.”

Assumption of some: a human predisposition, or need, to form group-based hierarchies

Analyses Paired t-tests comparing BJW & SDO, pre and post

Multiple regression to predict BJW and SDO at entry:

• Motivation for taking the course• Political conservatism• Family income

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

- Significant reductions (ps < .01)

- Belief in a just world (BJW)

- Social dominance orientation (SDO)

- Contrasts with other findings on these outcomes

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

- Significant predictor of initial social dominance orientation:

- Socially oriented motivation for taking course (+)

- Significant predictors of initial belief in a just world:

- Individually oriented motivation for taking course (-)

- Political conservatism (-)

- Family income (-)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

- No significant predictors of changes in BJW and SDO

- Implications for use of service-learning

Discussion

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

shappell.1@nd.edu

rtomasmo@nd.edu

nbowman@nd.edu

jbranden@nd.edu

574.631.5293

Suggested ReadingsService Learning and Social Justice Education: Strengthening Justice-Oriented Community Based Models of Teaching and Learning By David Butin (Ed.), 2008 Opting for the Poor: The challenge for the twenty-first century By Peter Henriot, 2004.

Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice By Joseph Holland and Peter Henriot, 1983. Making Faith-Sense: Theological Reflection in Everyday Life By Robert Kinast, 1999.

The Art of Theological Reflection By Patricia O’Connell Killen and John De Beer, 1995. Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility  By U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2004.